World Champs:Canada vs Czech -by moah

Ok.Crucial game here especially for the Czech side looking to secure quarterfinal berth.

Czechs delivered a must 3-1 win against Latvia yesterday,but it was after torturing performance.The main problem was executing chances even though there very plenty of them.Today, they are in a must win situation against Canadians to get the fourth qualifying place secured.However, this might be too difficult task.Czechs get too much penalty time and even though they kill penalties well and even score shorthanded goals (two against Latvia yesterday) they will face the best power play tam today.Also Czechs do not convince in the defensive role, leaving way too much space and actually loosing a lot of pucks by the boards.

Their main strength is in the first line with Jaromir Jagr who creates good scoring chances.

Canada had a really bad match against Sweden,looked slow and lazy on the ice.They are not know for having two bad matches in a row and I dont see this changing in today.Canada has a big motivation ahead of them as they would like to avoid facing Russia in the quartefinals,so win for them here is significant.They will count on their first line where Stamkos should start after missing two games.There is also power from best scorer Tavares and passing game from Perry.Canada is playing with rather young and inexperienced team here but they have great skating and still a lot of individual quality.

A must match for the Czechs which have had a bad tournament, playing poorly in every match.Now they will face young skilled team that will be highly determined to make up for their previous loss against Sweden and also secure win to avoid powerful Russians in the quarters.

Czechs are missing the depth here,simple do not have the quality to skate all night with the rested Canadians – as Czechs played last night,this will surely show at one point of the game.So when I consider these factors it is just hard to believe that Czechs could get away with a win.However,Czechs are known for playing well against Canada and might hang in the match if they can avoid the fatigue so I will take the benefit of Canadian OT win.4-3 for Canada.GL

 Pick : Canada including OT